♠ Twenty-four Christians killed by terrorists in Egypt. The martyrs are now standing in God’s presence, experiencing the most complete joy and sense of security a human can know. Those who murdered them, if they do not repent of their unbelief and call on the name of Jesus, will experience an eternity of torment, as they writhe in shame and separation from God.

♣ Two days ago, Gianforte and Quist were running for Montana’s sole U.S. Congressional seat. A reporter named Ben Jacobs burst into Ginaforte’s office, and began to ask Gianforte if he would support or oppose the proposed American Health Care Act (“TrumpCare”), which supposedly repeals and replaces the Affordable Care Act (“ObamaCare”). Gianforte physically assaulted Jacobs, reportedly catching the reporter around the throat and throwing him onto the ground (“body slammed”).

Last night, Gianforte still won the election. Most of his victory can probably be attributed to early voting–most people had already voted before the assault incident. But, the incident did not seem to dampen Gianforte’s votes.

When news reporters and the press spend a lot of time ridiculing and demonizing the “rubes” who live in “flyover country”, they should not be surprised that those same “rubes” hate them enough to cheer when the reporters get assaulted.

Also, there is a sense that the political faction as represented by the Ben Jacobs of the world are successfully using law and regulation to restrict, punish, and enslave “regular Americans”; that is, people who adhere to traditional values: Family, Faith, Hard Work, Doing the Right Thing… When someone loses their livelihood, for example, because he doesn’t celebrate the fantasy that is “same-sex marriage”, then that is an assault as real as what Gianforte did to Jacobs–even worse! Because Jacobs is now a celebrity in his own sphere, all because he decided to become an annoying trespasser to a guy with anger management issues. But, you won’t see anyone handwringing over the fellow who lost his job. If anything, the press celebrates his getting his “comeuppance” for standing in the way of The Future™. I looked up Quist’s Wikipedia article, and he is very much the sort of dedicated Social Justice Warrior who would oppress regular Americans with increased government power. I’m not saying that Gianforte won’t, as well, but Gianforte would proceed at a slower pace toward tyranny, at least.

It should also be said that reporters who are handwringing over Gianforte’s assault of Ben Jacobs, but who cheered when Richard Spencer was sucker-punched, are hypocrites.

I would normally, at this point, offer the sort of conditional statements about how what Gianforte did was wrong, that assault is never okay, etc. But it seems everyone in the universe has already done that.

♦ Last night, I got into a discussion on Twitter with a fellow who objected to my use of the phrase “Crony Capitalism”. He claimed there was no such thing. I described a situation (A mayor has the town council vote for a new road that runs past his brother-in-law’s store) that exemplifies “Crony Capitalism”, but he claimed that was just normal corruption. He said there were three states of economic being: Socialism, Capitalism, and Corporatism. I assume that he equates Corporatism and Fascism, because he accused me of both being a Fascist or (when I asserted my preference for Free Markets) defending Fascism. The argument would not have happened except that he was being pedantic.

During the course of the discussion, he accused me of failing to differentiate between “Macroeconomics” and “Microeconomics”. Well…heh, heh, there ain’t a such a thing as “Macroeconomics”. All economic decisions are made at the “micro” level.